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Home » Instagram » Me and my boys can’t be the only ones that eat our spare water kefir grains, right? We went through a stage where they weren’t reproducing, but having tried some really dark unrefined cane sugar they are going crazy and I have so many. This lot is for my son, age 5, to munch on…he goes crazy for them!
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Me and my boys can’t be the only ones that eat our spare water kefir grains, right? We went through a stage where they weren’t reproducing, but having tried some really dark unrefined cane sugar they are going crazy and I have so many. This lot is for my son, age 5, to munch on…he goes crazy for them!

March 13, 2020 by Ali

Previous PostOne of the reasons I moved my life to Italy in my hands: easily-accessible, local, organic food. Back in the UK, it took a lot of work for me to find UK grown and milled rye flour. Here, near Florence, there’s a fully organic farm, championing ancient grains and regenerative agriculture, literally a few miles from my house. That mans I can make sourdough, 85% wholegrain, rye bread that is hyper-local. It’s what I believe food should be and I feel such deep joy at being part of its creation in my kitchen.
Next PostI’ve been making 100% wholegrain spelt sourdough pizzas for about a year now. I feel like I’ve got the dough and the fermentation sorted, but the transfer to the oven and cooking to perfection is still a work in progress (it hasn’t helped that, in that time, I’ve moved my family from the UK to Italy and we’ve passed through many kitchens!). My 5-year old loves eating the results, whatever. That makes me a happy Mumma.

Recent Posts

  • Beef heart, slow-cooked whole earlier in the week. Italian asparagus bought from the local health food store. Sourdough bread made from spent spelt grain (previously used to make ancestral beer) spread with home-rendered lard made from fat from @valledelsasso. . Simple, local and delicious lunch which I ate with sauerkraut and a small side of beer. . I’m just uploading some videos I took in my garden early this morning – so if you fancy a nose, head to my story today. . Happy Saturday. What are you up to this weekend?
  • How gorgeous is this?! . It’s our lunch. A sourdough spelt pizza, topped with home-made pesto, and thinly sliced fresh garlic and spring onions. . The pesto (and all it’s glorious olive oil) soaked into the pizza and the crumb was divine. . Pesto: Previously soaked and dehydrated walnuts and almonds Handfuls of basil from the garden Some garlic – half of which I roasted the day before, half raw A bit of salt A lot of local olive oil . The recipe for the base is in my profile and there are more delightful green wavy, curvy photos in my story today (to be saved to the pizza highlight – I’m liking the collection of pics in there!!)
  • Yes, this is actually what my fermenting garlic looks like. Gorgeous, eh?! I got clear on what this colour-change is (the allicin reacting with the fermentation acids) thanks to @savage.craic who does a whole lot of interesting ferments. . Seeing colour changes like this in my ferments makes me feel even more like an alchemist! I like that :-) . If you don’t ferment garlic, I totally recommend that you give it a go. Peel the cloves, chop the big ones, cover with a brine (5g salt to 1 cup water is what I use) and find a way to keep the cloves under the brine level (using a cabbage leaf here). . Then pop the jar in a corner for it to hide for 6 weeks and you’ll have a wonderful stash of cloves that aren’t as strong as raw garlic, but haven’t been as ‘denatured’ by the cooking process (which destroys the medicinal powerhouse, allicin).
  • This ancestral beer, made with Italian spelt, gets fermented with the help of sourdough starter and the yeast and bacteria I have living around me. There are no commercial yeasts in it. And there wouldn’t have been in any beer further than a hundred or so years back, as yeasts were not a commercial thing. . For centuries, before industrialisation, yeasts were valued so highly that they were associated with divine intervention and when they appeared they were honoured and nurtured. . My favourite example of this is the yeast log. This was a piece of carved wood that was placed in the fermenter as the beer was in progress. It would catch the yeasts and bacteria. When brewing was complete, it’d be taken out and hung up to dry. The live organisms would remain on it in a dormant state. Then, when it was time to brew again, it’d be taken down and placed in with the liquid. Crazy simple, yet so effective. . I want a yeast log. I can’t tell you how much I want a yeast log. . Getting all my ancestral beer inspiration kicks from the #stephenharrodbuhner book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers. Will put a few pictures in my story if you want a nose. . Shame you can’t have a taste of the beer too. It’s unusual. But good.
  • I love bread that bursts where it feels like. . I’m not into ‘ears’ and I haven’t got the patience for patterns on my bread. As you can see, sometimes I even forget to score! . There’s such beauty in the cracks that loaves naturally make, left to their own devices. The processes involved in bread are so much bigger than me and, as a home-baker, I control so many of them. Why not just let this one be? . And I often wonder if, like tea leaves, bread ‘bursts’ could be read. . I wonder what this one’s telling me? Any ideas?!

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